


Breathless

by sephonered



Category: Once Upon A Time - Fandom
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, h/c, preslash maybe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 16:30:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/889419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sephonered/pseuds/sephonered
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kathryn is going through emotional hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathless

**Author's Note:**

> Written VERY early in season 1 while David and Kathrine are still together.
> 
> This is actually a character piece that I wrote as a response to a prompt for some Kathrine/MaryMargret, H/C on the OUaT Kink Meme.
> 
> Link to the Meme: http://ouatkinkmeme.livejournal.com/754.html?page=1#comments

Kathryn is going through emotional hell. Her husband, whom she had thought dead or departed for the last ten years, has just awoken from a coma and swooped back into her life.

For the last decade she has been fluctuating between rage at being abandoned, feeling worthless and ashamed for what that abandonment might say about her, as well as her ability to accurately judge the character of another human being. Her ability to trust is shot to hell, and laced through it all is guilt; guilt that she might be wrong and something might have happened to him, guilt that she is alive where he could be dead, and guilt that even if that is true, she's still angry that he died, and finally, guilt that she has started to move on.

It's been ten years. She had started to normalize, to cope. Then, as if by magic, he's back in her life, and all those emotions she had started to lay to rest are there again, so much louder and more insistent than before, and look! They brought friends! She's angry all the time now, a quiet simmer that she shoves down so far that even she is barely aware of it. He has ripped her life apart AGAIN...and she can't even really blame him for it. That doesn’t stop the anger though, and the guilt, amazingly, the guilt is worse than before.

The icing on the cake is that he doesn’t even seem to care...or notice, really. Who can blame him? He's spent the last ten years living inside his own mind, to be honest he was always a bit self involved before, so was she, actually. It was one of the reasons they got along, a fault they were both content to over look in each other, and themselves.

Poor Kathryn, she doesn’t know where to turn. She can barely even stand to think the things that are going through her head, let alone say them aloud. Her friends all treat her as if she is on the receiving end of a miracle, she supposes she is; it certainly sounds like one. The whole town looks at her like she's part of it. With this look in their eyes like she is a source of inspiration, proof that their hopes aren't hopeless. Why does it feel like hell?

Well, not all, maybe, there is Mary. She bumps into her now and again, it's a small town, it would be impossible not to. Every time she sees her she looks into those eyes and it's like staring into a mirror.

There is guilt, so much guilt that Mary can barely hold her gaze, she always breaks it as soon as she can. There is pain too, heartbreak, Kathryn thinks, or something close enough. She knows the circumstances, she thinks she should be mad, she has finally stopped being surprised that she isn't. She just remembers a time so long ago when the same man, seemingly, walked away from her too. She sees the same self loathing flicker through this woman's eyes when she thinks no one is looking. The same hatred that comes from wanting what you cannot have, and from not being able to stop wanting.

Over the top of it all is the thin brittle veneer of courtesy and cheer that is so characteristic of her. Kathryn is sure Mary Margret's friends can see through it, ...if their bothering to look. To her though, it was like a slap in the face, the first time she saw it. She saw that look every hour every day for months. Every time she passed a mirror, until she learned to cover it, to sink her emotions, to be “fine, just fine, thank you.”

It seems cruel, unspeakably sadistic that Kathryn tries to bump into her sometimes, but it makes her feel less alone to see those eyes, to know that someone else is hurting too. Still, no one notices her though, she has gotten far too used to hiding. She lets a bit slip through, the exhaustion, the sleeplessness. Those are only to be expected, after all. All the hubbub with David, the paperwork, the physical therapy, the nurse checks, Hell, just “getting to know one another” again, not that that has happened. No one is surprised that she seems tired.

The guilt keeps her going more than anything, keeps her here, with him. She doesn't know what keeps him. She is too scared to ask, and they have forgotten how to talk.

Part of Kathryn just wants to drive over to Mary's and leave David on her doorstep wrapped in a bow. The rest of her thinks she's a monster for even considering it, and hates her for wanting, even briefly, to do what she thought David had done to her those many years ago.

She spends most of her time crying now, well, waiting to cry really. Shoving every thing down all day long and waiting for the opportunity to be alone. They really don't come along all that much. It seems she is always surrounded by people now, at the very least David. So when they do pop up it all seems to hit her like a freight train, or more like a punch to the gut. All of a sudden she can't breath through the sob rising in her throat and her face has become wet with tears she has no memory of shedding. She wears almost no makeup now, what little she does is all water proof. There are always tissues in her purse, and she has only been caught once; by Regina, thank God. She blamed it on the Opera rerun she hadn't noticed was on until then. Regina accepted her at face value and ribbed her a bit for “rising to the bait of over-emotional network drivel,” and left it at that.

Well she HAD only been caught once. Kathryn looked up into the equally startled eyes of Mary Margret and the only thing going through her mind is the sure knowledge that her face was sopping wet, red, and blood-shot; as well as the semi hysterical thought that Opera wasn't on anywhere near here. 

The feeling, that followed on the heels of that shock, was so intense that she crumpled as the breath left her. It was the same sense of comfort she felt every other time she looked into those eyes, only this time, what accompanied it was a bone deep calm. Mary caught her as she fell, and it seemed only natural for her grip to become an embrace as they settled, for her hand to smooth back the weeping woman's hair, to mutter soothing nonsense as the tears, she too had been holding back, quietly began to fall.

**Author's Note:**

> In my head, what happen next is, Kathrine stops crying first, and then wipes the tears from Mary Margret's face before kissing her.
> 
> If you don't want to read it as preslash, though, that's cool too.


End file.
